Pedals, with an opinion

About Columns

Everywhere else on the site, we keep our opinions on a leash. Here we let them off. Columns is the section for the arguments worth having, the history worth knowing, and the questions a spec sheet can't answer. You won't agree with all of it. That's the point.

Sometimes that means picking a fight with the industry, like asking why guitar pedals cost what they cost and whether the boutique premium is craft or theatre. Sometimes it means defending a take most players roll their eyes at, like the case for running an always-on pedal, or asking the question every overloaded board is afraid of: how many pedals is too many.

And sometimes there's no fight at all, just a story worth telling, like how fuzz was born from a broken console, or a tour through the strangest pedals ever built. If Guides is the reference shelf, Columns is the conversation you'd have about all of it after the shop closed.